Manchester City make £121m loss with wage bill bigger than turnover

Their challenge, though, is to meet Uefa's financial fair-play edict, which requires clubs to break even beginning next year. Clubs are permitted to lose only €45m (£39m) to 2014 or they may face sanctions, including, most severely, exclusion from European competitions.

i think i can guess how that's going to end. unless the punishments are mandatory and non-interpretable then it's going to be a slap on the wrist and a nice long period to bring themselves into line.

Originally Posted by borsuk

i think i can guess how that's going to end. unless the punishments are mandatory and non-interpretable then it's going to be a slap on the wrist and a nice long period to bring themselves into line.

Does read a bit like that doesn't it.

Although, they have binned a Spanish or Italian club and prevented them playing in Europe, I think.

Originally Posted by dunk

Does read a bit like that doesn't it.

Although, they have binned a Spanish or Italian club and prevented them playing in Europe, I think.

Mallorca got their Europa League spot taken off them because they went into administration. It's like the points penalty in the league. Citeh are hardly in that boat.

Originally Posted by dunk

Fair point.

I'm not quite sure where their viral marketing campaign sits when measured amongst the pantheon of truly 'Big' clubs, but I'm sure it is considered massive throughout Europe.

United honours list: 18 league titles, 3 European Cups, etc.

city honours list: a massive Tevez poster, a massive soviet-style poster and 'tick-tock'.

Can't compete with that tbh.

Heard the Soviet poster's gone already, after some smartarse sprayed '35 years' on it when they got knocked out of the beer cup?

Cups for touchiness.

£#%&! the massive @#%&!s

Originally Posted by antonin jablonsky

Their challenge, though, is to meet Uefa's financial fair-play edict, which requires clubs to break even beginning next year. Clubs are permitted to lose only €45m (£39m) to 2014 or they may face sanctions, including, most severely, exclusion from European competitions.

How is 'losing' money measured and how are we doing against that measurement ?

I would have thought that all these new financial fair-play rules would be a bit worrying for us

There's an easy way for them to avoid the loss-making rule. Etihad suddenly increase shirt money by £50m a year or whaever is needed.

Or the Sheik set ups a shell company in the UAE and pours money into that. That shell company becomes another of the club's sponsors to the tune of whatever is needed.

Didn't UEFA say sponsorships would be 'market-tested', to avoid not just citeh but say Moratti as well doing precisely that?

Sponsorship income will apparently be judged against averages of other teams with similiar income from other sources. If it's well above that average then it won't be counted.

Interestingly, Gary #@&%! was expected to be included on the steering committee for the Financial Fair Play rules but was 'disinvited'...

Another potential loophole often mentioned is for a wealthy owner to pay a ridiculous sum, say £200 million, for sponsorship or use of an executive box. Here, UEFA have said they will test such deals for “fair value”, and if an owner has over-paid for services, the income will be adjusted down to market value. Of course, this is open to interpretation and there are plenty of high-paying deals that could be used as a comparative. It would also be difficult to argue against a club securing many deals at, say £5 million, which could add up to a tidy sum.

However, here’s the thing: Manchester City do not have to worry about any of that, as there is a section in the new guidelines that may well allow them to pass UEFA’s break-even test with flying colours.

As a rule, revenue from non-football operations is excluded from the break-even calculation, but clause B. (k) in Annex X allows you to included revenue from “Operations based at, or in close proximity to, a club’s stadium and training facilities such as a hotel, restaurant, conference centre, business premises (for rental), health-care centre, other sports teams.”

That sounds almost exactly like the £1 billion development that City are planning for the area around Eastlands stadium. Described as a world class sports and leisure complex, it will include a training facility, luxury hotel and restaurant and should provide a very healthy revenue stream. Bingo! Job done.

http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010...fair-play.html

And if anyone fancies doing a fair bit of reading -
http://en.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/D...2_DOWNLOAD.pdf

Upon hearing of UEFA's guidlines, Carlos, Bobby and Gary hatched a plan and set off on a great adventure....

Let's just hope they enforce these rules with an Iron fist.

Either way, looking at it, it is safe to say City's ridiculous spending will have to be curtailed to some extent and they are going to have to give some serious thought to wage structure and reduction.

Maybe the money side of football will start to come back down to earth at some point.

Staggering isn't it. If that were United I'd be seriously £#%&!ing worried.

You can compare it to all that gone before such as Jack Walker etc, but this is something else. It's on a completely different level. The transfer activities of Real Madrid and Manchester City over the last couple of years have warped european football's transfer market. At at time of global recession when things like wages and transfer fees should have been levelling off or maybe even coming down - they've unbalanced the entire market.

If QPR get promoted and their investors decide it's time to make their presence felt in the same way - and they have the clout to do that - we'll have another club chucking money around like it's going to rot.

When my plans for a whiskey-powered car come to fruition, Ireland will rule the world and citeh will be proper £#%&!ed.

Originally Posted by andyroo

When my plans for a whiskey-powered car come to fruition, Ireland will rule the world and citeh will be proper £#%&!ed.

Wouldn't they drink the contents of the fuel tank?

Originally Posted by Zorg

Wouldn't they drink the contents of the fuel tank?

true dat

they'd be better of filling the tank with toothpaste

Please tell me this will £#%&! them up.

Originally Posted by thatsfuctit

the boundaries have gradually been pushed back - but Ambrovich was a major shift, a nobody club all of a sudden could buy anyone, pay anything, a big shift from Walker bankrolling blackburn to success for a season in my book.

Can't believe I am defending Chelski here - but they were significantly less of a "nobody club" than ciddy

Didn't Roman want to buy Spurs originally??

£#%&!in hell, just read that the financial results don't include the money they spent this summer on transfers or wages either. Reckon you could probably add another fifty or sixty million this time next year

Incidentally Sky are reporting on this story with the headline 'Massive losses'.